Saul Hansell asks: are telcos next to go bankrupt?

They’re definitely on the list. As I’ve pointed out for some time, the problem isn’t within industries: it’s across them.

It’s time to connect the dots. It is no coincidence that so many industries are in trouble simultaneously and so fast. The growth of the Zombieconomy is a Jupiter-sized wake-up call to today’s leaders.

Here’s the real problem.

Capitalism 1.0 is built on an obsolete set of ideals. What the 21st century needs are better ideals, to build a better kind of business on.

Fundamentally, we need organizations that can behave very differently. Telcos are a great example — they’ve been fighting tomorrow for decades. And the bill is now coming due.

That’s a tough set of lessons to internalize. Recently, I gave a talk on Constructive Capitalism to a bunch of senior guys at a major international organization. They debated with me for close to an hour whether a better kind of capitalism was really necessary.

Frankly, I thought it was a bit funny that the debate was necessary at all. Hey, look — it’s the simultaneous collapse of significant portions of the manufacturing and service sectors. Convinced yet?